Opinion pieces

Magna Carta: A Beggarly Thing, A Mess of Pottage

That in 2015, we still commemorate an agreement between the king and the barons of England reached 800 years ago, probably on the 15th June 1215, is a cause for wonder. Magna Carta, the Great Charter, as that agreement has come to be known, is held to be a milestone in the course of western constitutional thought.

A Break in China’s Smog: Will environmental concerns help deliver consumer rights to China?

China’s spectacular economic growth has arguably been the most significant development in the twenty-first century thus far, with experts predicting a Chinese Century in which it will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy.

The Regulatory Space: An Evolving Paradigm

The 2008 international financial crisis spawned an avalanche of financial regulation. As Europe’s banks struggle to raise fresh capital and cut back on certain types of transactions, questions are beginning to be raised about whether financial regulation is going ‘too far’.

Twenty-five years since the Velvet Revolutions, how much has changed in the Eastern Bloc?

This Sunday, 9th March marks twenty-five years since the first major breakthrough in the roundtable talks between the Solidarity and Communist Authorities in Poland – an agreement on bicameral legislature called the National Assembly.

A decade on from the Morecambe Bay cockling tragedy, the business of human trafficking is thriving

Exactly a decade has passed since twenty-three Chinese men and women met their tragic deaths at Morecambe Bay, drowned while out picking cockles on the notoriously dangerous stretch of coastline, working for the profits of an illegal gangmaster.

"We need to get better at coping with extremes."Environment Agency Chairman Lord Chris Smith has today had to defend the Agency’s flood management record in response to growing criticism that it could have done more to alleviate the flooding in Somerset and other parts of the South.

Implementing ‘Sharia’ in Syria’s Liberated Provinces

In November 2012, Syrian rebels established a ‘Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice’ — a name similar to that of the Saudi religious police — in the city of al-Bab (province of Aleppo).

Leveson and the Royal Charter: an unsatisfactory stalemate

When Lord Justice Leveson published his recommendation that newspapers should operate a system of independent self-regulation, he surely cannot have envisaged the political turmoil, in-fighting, and secret backdoor deals that have resulted.

Europe on the Brink? Economic, Political, and Constitutional Issues

As an insider with experience of the workings of the EU, I am sure that its institutions can cope with the stresses and strains now being experienced. The EU will emerge stronger from this crisis, as it has from past crises.

The Cost of a Legal Transition in Egypt: A Price Worth Paying?

Black Swans and Elephants on the Move: Can Emergencies Trigger Welfare State Reform?

An important lesson of history is that to create the conditions for change one must transform unfocused popular support for reform into the sharpened perception of an immediate source of emergency. This is a lesson that modern political managers are wont to forget.

Beyond the Third Way in Labour Law

About a century ago in Britain, the opposing forces of capital and labour reached an accommodation in a legal framework that provided a structure within which collective bargaining between employers and unions could flourish.

One China, Many Systems

The Boumediene Decision: What Now?

Some weeks back, in a policy brief prepared for the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, I predicted both the outcome of and a good portion of the reasoning that would serve as the basis for the US Supreme Court's recently issued decision in Boumediene v. Bush.